Mohamed Salah's slump at Liverpool explained - team failure, not individual failure

Mohamed Salah's slump at Liverpool explained - team failure, not individual failure

~> When Mohamed Salah shared the top of the Premier League scoring charts with Tottenham's Son Heung-min in May, it earned the Liverpool forward his third Golden Boot in five seasons. In the absence of a major international tournament, Salah had an extended summer break and his contract deal was resolved when he signed a new three-year deal worth more than £350,000 in week, making the highest paid player in the all  club's history.

~> The stage seemed set for a refreshed and satisfied Salah. However, at the halfway point of this season, the reigning PFA and Football Writers' Player of the Year boasts just seven Premier League goals - compared to 15 at the halfway point a year ago. While Manchester City's Erling Haaland has scored 25 league goals and has already turned the race for the Golden Boot into a procession, Salah finds himself in ninth place, beaten by the likes of Martin Odegaard, Miguel Almiron, Aleksandar Mitrovic and Ivan Toney. Salah's best 23 goals in 2021-22 came at a rate of one every 120 minutes. He is averaging a league goal every 241 minutes this season and has scored in five of Liverpool's last six games. 

~> Why has the production of one of the deadliest finishers in the modern era dropped so much?

~> Nobody at Kirkby disagreed with the idea that the 30-year-old had somehow calmed down after receiving a big pay rise last summer. Salah continues to set the standard on the training pitch every day. A sense of perspective is also important. His tally of 17 goals in 29 appearances in all competitions this season is more than respectable. He moved past Sir Kenny Dalglish for seventh in the club's all-time scoring on 173 – 10 behind Robbie Fowler and 13 behind Steven Gerrard.

~> Salah is joint top scorer in this season's Champions League alongside Paris Saint-Germain's Kylian Mbappe with seven goals, although that tally was increased by four against hapless Rangers, including the fastest hat-trick in the competition's history at six minutes and 12 seconds. But there's no escaping his home games. In his last three league games against Chelsea, Brighton and Brentford, he had a combined three shots - and none of them were on target. Salah has certainly been hampered by Liverpool's collective malaise, which has left them 10 points adrift of the Champions League places. His remarkable stamina remains (he's sat just 21 minutes of top-flight football this season), but injuries and loss of form around him have hurt Jurgen Klopp's side. This contributed to a lack of fluency, control and cohesion. There was no solid platform in midfield and the right side did not function as effectively. Trent Alexander-Arnold contributed a dozen Premier League assists in 2021-22 but has just one this season. Salah didn't get the ball that often or in enough dangerous areas. He is averaging just 39 touches per 90 minutes this season and 7.3 forward touches per 90 - both the lowest figures of his Liverpool career. This is down from 50 to 9.6 in 2021-22. He spends more time on the periphery.

~> There is always going to be an adjustment period after the departure of Sadio Mane and the signing of a very different type of striker in Darwin Nunez last summer. This process has been hampered by constant upheavals in the front line due to injuries to Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota and Roberto Firmino. Salah started at Brentford in a front three with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Nunez. In the following league game, Nunez's hamstring problem meant that new signing Cody Gakpo played through the middle instead. Harvey Elliott replaced Oxlade-Chamberlain on the left against Chelsea last weekend. Prior to the World Cup, Firmino led from wide with Nunez. At times, Salah found himself isolated and it was too easy for opponents to crowd him out. In terms of dribble attempts (3.3 per 90 compared to 4.0) and dribble completions (1.1 per 90 compared to 1.7), he is behind last season.